Expedition South - Episode 13 - Blizzards, Canada, Northern Lights and Alaska

Welcome to episode 13. In this part of my epic journey, I continue off in Canada. I'll head north through the top of the World Highway the day before it closes for the season. I'll then head west to Fairbanks for some food, then north to Coldfoot where a winter storm thaws me dead in my tracks 250 miles from the top of Alaska, cross the Arctic Circle, and on to Prudhoe Bay to see the Northern Lights. So gas stations in the Yukon are pretty interesting. They're pretty, uh, they're pretty rugged. There's pretty much nothing, uh, but it's pretty cool. There's a lot of atmosphere to it. It's kind of neat. Weird people, weird place, pretty scarce of anything. I'm in Northern Canada and I'm running into cool Korean guys that are doing the same trip, BMWs. It's always fun running into interesting people on the road. So I'm in Dawson Creek, uh, Canada, Yukon, and I literally feel like I've stepped back in time into the Wild West. Twinging doors at the bar and the people in the bar are pretty western looking. So I am in Dawson City, waiting for a ferry, and in the meantime, I saw these cool people with these really cool campers, and I saw all their cool gear, and I just had to come over here. So please tell the people back home, what are you doing tomorrow? Because it's quite cool. So we're on the side of Dawson magazine, photographing the Yukon, and we are heading up 200 miles north. We're here by helicopter in the morning to photograph grizzly bears underwater to try and get people to care about the mining that is taking place in this beautiful territory. They're going to go scuba dive with grizzly bears, and I might tag along. No, okay, I wish. I wish I could go, that sounds so cool. So it's incredible, again, the people you meet on the road, and it's quite humbling, because they gave me a bunch of food too, so thank you for the food. That was so cool. Here I am eating my $1.50 soup, and they gave me some Kung Pao chicken and stuff. So the last ferry crossing I had was South America. So it's kind of nice to be back on the water, I guess. It runs every 15 minutes. Take that, Puerto Montt, and El Chaten, and everything in South America, where there's one ferry a day kind of thing. It's ridiculous. That's right, Alaska. You could have said I wouldn't make it. Pretty proud at this moment, Alaska. Freezing my ass off. Terrible wind, snow. The tip of South America to getting to Alaska, this is quite, this is quite something else, I have to say. The amount of effort it takes, and the amount of money, the sacrifices, the cold, the mental anxiety, and anguish, and physical aspect of the whole thing. It's quite numbing to think about all that it takes to get to here. I'm enjoying the moment. Success. Although my finger's now reportedly frozen. It's a good day in Alaska. So again, food continues to be quite expensive, even in the northern area of Alaska now. I've had to resort to my backup plan of eating mini ravioli out of a can, which is pretty terrible, I must say. It's awful. But you can't beat a dollar. Oh, Walmart, how wonderful you are. So in Chicken, Alaska, apparently there's a city called Chicken. The population of this town is six people, so I don't think anybody gets laid here. So I'm meeting new people from all over the world. It's Alfonso from Portugal, and he's done all this stuff right here. He's another world traveler, I guess. Dead bear, just shot. Thank you. So I just arrived in Fairbanks, Alaska, with my gracious couch hosts, Hannah and Tom. They had a salmon meal ready for me. Very delicious. It's probably the best meal I've had in the past week and a half, two weeks, if not a month. Thank you guys, appreciate that. I am in Fairbanks, Alaska, using this Walmart as my mechanical shop. And one thing I figured out during this trip is that I've used Walmart for about almost everything I can imagine. I fix here, I eat here, I work here, I raise funds for my trip here, I run into random people from all over the world here, you name it, and I've pretty much done it here at Walmart. And you wonder why I love this place. I then started the arduous trek to Peru Bay. You see this? You see that? It says Arctic Circle. Yeah! I have no words to express what a ridiculous adventure it's been getting to the Arctic Circle. Look at this! I've lost count how many times during this trip I've run out of gas, but I'm glad I brought some in this remote part of the world. It also gave me some chance to warm up the body, which was constantly being cold every day for the past three weeks. So I'm here in Coldfoot, the last stop for gas for about 200 and almost 300 miles. I asked if the pass to Deadhorse, which is this huge mountain pass, has frozen over yet, and apparently it has. And they said there's about eight inches of packed ice and snow, and it's pretty impossible to go, and everybody's telling me not to go, and that I won't make it. It'd be such a shame not to try at least. So I'm really going to see if this is possible, and if not, then you're going to see some fun videos of me flying off the bike. So here I am at Atikens Pass, the one that everybody said I wouldn't make. You can see it's pretty mushy, pretty muddy. The bike's going pretty much back and forth like this. Man, I'd be so happy if I make it. No ice, slush, or obstacle was going to stop me now. 500 plus days to get here, and I was a man whose sheer will and determination got me this far. So I pushed through the homestretch from Argentina to Alaska. I'm convinced that sunsets on the polar ends of the world, such as Patagonia in Argentina and northern Alaska, are probably some of the best I've ever seen in my life. It's so amazing how long they last, first of all, and second, just the colors of the atmosphere just get at a certain angle to where you notice a little bit more distinction between the colors. That sounds pretty cool though, huh? Polar ends of the earth. I spent 11 days hunting down the northern lights. They change locations every night, so on my birthday, I got an amazing gift. The lights started off as a white cloud similar to Milky Way, but then morphed into the green rays of light you see. They said hello for me, danced around, changed shapes, and gave me the most lasting and amazing gift at the end of my 500 day struggle to make it to this life-changing event I will never forget. So stay tuned for the next episode where I'll visit the pipeline with my buddy, John. I'll take a ride in an Alaskan bush plane over, around, and through a glacier. I'll see the coolest man cave ever located in an airplane hangar. I'll spend Thanksgiving couch surfing with incredible people. I'll get hit with a winter storm in Montana. And just for fun, I'll attempt to drive 1,300 plus miles from Canada to Mexico in less than 24 hours without stopping for an Ironbite award. Thanks for watching!